Main menu

Post navigation

Not enough talent for two-party? Then have competition to generate talent!

The argument by the ruling party that there’s insufficient talent to form a two-party system does not hold water. I find it even more incredible that PM Lee used a football analogy, that there is every country only sends one team (Straits Times, Why calls for two-party system won’t go away, April 8, 2011).

That’s the rule of the game by FIFA, not because there is insufficient talent in the participating countries. Brazil could easily send their third or fourth teams and still beat us and many others. The reason these countries are so good is that they have a robust competition internally to select the best to represent the country. And having the robust competition also spark interest amongst its people so that there’s a bigger pool of talents to hunt for to build up future teams.

All the more, we should have internal competition to bring out the best, be it in the ruling party or in the opposition. Thanks, PM Lee. You have made the arguments by the opposition for a two-party system easier.

If you have only one football team in the country and disqualify the people in other team, craft rules such that you can always put members of the opposing team away without going to court, make it such that if the opposing team have 11 players on the field it is not enough(you need to field 4×11 players or 5×11 players in order to qualify), have the referees on your payroll, ….

Then very soon, your one football team will think they are world beaters. They fall asleep in the field, let in own goals and blame the ball-picker, the referee and the audience etc.

When actually those that have a vibrant, competitive league where many different teams compete against each other week in week out without players falling asleep on the field. And in this type of competitive league, the best players in different teams represents the country and they go on to represent the country in the World Cup. They hone their skills competing against each other, watch the best players train and more importantly, the young people and the audience will be enthralled and want to be in one of the team they support.